Captain Jack Harkness
"Captain Jack Harkness" was the alias adopted by Time Agent and con man Javic Piotr Thane from the 51st century who became an associate and occasional companion of the Doctor. He was made immortal when Rose Tyler, using the power of the Time Vortex, revived him after he was murdered by a Dalek. He would eventually become the leader of Torchwood Three, and later the entire Torchwood Institute. He is portrayed by John Barrowman. Biography Backstory Jack was born around the year 5094 under a different name, which he concealed. He grew up in the 51st century in an era when attitudes towards sex differed from those prevalent in the 21st century. Jack was reared on the Boeshane Peninsula, a sandy, beach-like area. He spent time with his brother Gray and his father, Franklin, playing cricket and singing around campfires. One day, an unknown enemy invaded his homeland and killed many of the inhabitants. His father told Jack to flee with Gray, while he went back for Jack's mother. As they ran, Gray stumbled and Jack let go of his hand. Jack continued to run, thinking Gray was behind him. Jack hid in a bush while the invaders flew overhead. He returned home hoping to find his brother, but found only his dead father and his distraught mother. Jack said it was the worst day of his life. He spent many years searching for his brother unsuccessfully. Jack buried the memory of what happened that day and eventually lost his happier memories of before his father's death. As a young man, he persuaded a friend to "join up" with him to fight an enemy Jack described only as "horrible." They were captured. The enemy thought Jack's friend the weaker of the pair and tortured him as a lesson for Jack. They let Jack go, to bear the guilt of his friend's fate. Once, when sentenced to death, he ordered four hypervodkas as a last meal and ended up bedding both executioners at the same time. He recalled them as a lovely couple who kept in touch. Jack worked as a Time Agent with John Hart, a partner in more than one context. They once spent five years trapped in a two-week time loop, becoming the equivalent of a married couple after spending so much time together. Hart admitted to having been "a good wife", closing an argument between the two as to the details of the relationship. Jack had been the first Boeshane resident to be signed up for the Time Agency, making him a "poster boy" for the area, known as the "face of Boe". Jack found that the Agency had erased two years of his past memory, which he wanted back. He left the Agency and became a time-travelling con artist, running scams using his knowledge of future events. His preferred schemes involved collecting payment for items he knew would be destroyed before the buyer could see it. Finding pieces of space junk and directing them to the soon-to-be disaster sites, Jack would sell them to passers-by, then allow the items to be destroyed before the buyers could pick up their merchandise. At some point, he acquired a small, sleek Chula spacecraft fitted for human use, which could turn invisible. Doctor Who: Series 1 Chula scam gome wrong In 1941, he assumed the alias of an American volunteer, Captain Jack Harkness, who had died in action the January prior. He knew very little about the real Jack, other than basic information such as the date and manner of his death. While running a scam involving a Chula ambulance in the London Blitz, he spotted Rose Tyler hanging from a barrage balloon. He rescued her and took her aboard his ship. Deducing she came from the future, and thinking she was a Time Agent, he tried conning her into getting the ambulance. Upon meeting Rose's "companion", the Ninth Doctor, Jack realised that they were just freelancers like he was. The Doctor pointed out that the landing site of the ambulance was where the ground zero of the Empty Child plague started. Jack believed the object was empty space junk, but in fact, the ambulance contained nanogenes. The nanogenes had not seen a human before; they took the gasmask for the deceased child's, Jamie, face and fused it to him, spreading to other people who touched him, also transforming them into undead creatures with no lifesigns. Jack teleported the Doctor and Rose to his warship to escape, and they went to the bombsite near the hospital, where they realised the truth. The ambulance started its emergency protocols, causing the creatures, who had been armed as "Chulawarriors", and were ready to "tear the world apart" to find the boy's mother. Every patient and soldier at the bomb site converged on the Doctor, Rose and Jack. The Doctor fixed the nanogenes' mistakes by comparing the DNA of the child and Nancy, who was his mother, restoring the infected zombies to normal. Jack stopped the bomb from hitting the bombsite by placing it in stasis inside his warship and when everyone got to safety, the Doctor destroyed the ambulance, making sure that history said that a bomb hit that location. The Doctor rescued Jack from his Chula warship just before it exploded, taking him aboard the TARDISas his latest companion, to the delight of both Rose, who found Jack attractive, and Jack, who found both Rose and the Doctor attractive. Travels with the Ninth Doctor and Rose The trio shared numerous adventures together, including an encounter with Russianspecial forces, (PROSE: The Deviant Strain) and later, a neanderthal. When the TARDIS became powerless to travel through time, the three travellers went to 2006 Cardiff so that the TARDIS could refuel via a scar in a rift in Cardiff. Whilst in Cardiff, Jack met Rose's estranged boyfriend, Mickey Smith. Together, they captured Blon, the sole Slitheen survivor of a prior attack on 10 Downing Street and who had become Lord Mayor. Afterwards, they visited the planet Arkannis Major in the year 2775. At some point, the Doctor, Rose and Jack arrived on New Vegas in the 23rd century, where they intended to assist the police department investigate the Whisper, a strange vigilante that had terrorised the city's underworld. This involved Rose working undercover as a nightclub waitress and Jack as a reporter for the Daily Galaxy. After visiting Kyoto, Japan in 1336, Jack, the Doctor and Rose were abducted by transmat beams, and awoke on the Game Station. Jack found himself on a makeover game show hosted by Trine-E and Zu-Zana. When the android hosts threatened him, he shot them, and improvised a more powerful gun out of their defabricator. Jack met up with the Doctor and an escapee from the deadly games, Lynda Moss, and tracked down Rose. They raced to save Rose from The Weakest Link hosted by a deadly Anne Droid; they were unsuccessful in preventing the Anne Droid from seemingly killing Rose. Completely heartbroken, Jack was tempted to shoot the staff behind the games and threatened to kill the guards when they arrested the Doctor and Lynda, only to get arrested himself for breaking in and out of the games. However, he and the Doctor physically overpowered the guards and set off to stop the deadly "entertainment". Taking "hostages" in the control room, Jack found the TARDIS stowed away in an archive room. Using the TARDIS, he discovered the laser that "killed" the games' losers was actually teleporting them across space. Puzzled, the Doctor discovered that the Game Station was unknowingly broadcasting a secondary signal to an empty location of space, which was where all the losers ended up. Disabling the signal, the Doctor was horrified to find two hundred Dalek battleships. Establishing contact, the Doctor learned his old foes had taken Rose hostage, but promised the Daleks that he would rescue her and destroy them for the final time. Jack and the Doctor flew the TARDIS into the Dalek mothership, rescued Rose and discovered the Dalek Emperor was controlling the Game Station and turning the contestants into Daleks. Returning to Satellite 5 to prepare for the battle ahead, Jack formed a resistance group consisting of contestants and staff members to fight the Daleks. Knowing he was fighting a losing battle and would most certainly perish, Jack kissed Rose and the Doctor goodbye. In the ensuring battle, all of the resistance were killed and the Doctor tricked Rose into going home. Now the last man fighting, Jack was killed defending the satellite against the Daleks as they attacked the Game Station, and seemingly accepted his death. He was resurrected by Rose Tyler, while holding the powers of the Time Vortex which turned her into the Bad Wolf, returned to the Game Station, destroying the Daleks and resurrecting Jack. The TARDIS departed before he could rejoin them. Jack was left stranded on the satellite. Rose couldn't control her powers and brought Jack back to life forever, making him immortal, and as the Doctor claimed, a fixed point in time. The Year after I Died Shortly following the Doctor's regeneration going wrong, Rose suggested going back to find Jack, thinking he might be able to help; the Doctor claimed that he was busy rebuilding the Earth, not yet wishing to tell her the truth about what had just happened. Somehow making his way to the ravaged Earth, Jack, though recognised as a hero for his fight against the Daleks, chose to live as a recluse in a small cabin located near the ruins of the Black Country Dome. A year passed, and Jack found himself approached by Silo Crook, an aspiring reporter. Though Jack vehemently wished to be left alone, both shared a suspicion of the Hope Foundation, a charity founded by Vortia Trear ostensibly to take the surviving humans off Earth and give them new, better lives. Sneaking aboard Trear Station, repurposed from the Game Station along with several starliners and a couple of freight ships, Jack reunited with Silo and found that Vortia was part of a rich elite which had always looked out for themselves and intended to exploit those below them. In the ensuing revolt, Trear was deposed and the station was left falling to Earth, forcing Jack to interact with live cables to land it safely. Reviving after being electrocuted, Jack reasoned that the universe liked him and saw that an abundance of resources was salvaged from the grounded station, confident that humanity would ultimately rebuild itself. Living in the 19th-20th Century 19th century Eventually, Jack used the vortex manipulator in his Time Agency wrist strap to return to Cardiff, the site of an active space-time rift. Jack knew that the TARDIS could refuel itself using the rift, and therefore attempted to reach there in the early 21st century so that he could find the Doctor again. However, Jack ended up in 1869, and his vortex manipulator burned out, leaving him stranded. Jack stayed in Cardiff, choosing to continue using the Harkness alias (or at least using it when he started working for Torchwood Three). His third death and resurrection occurred when he was shot in 1892 during a fight on Ellis Island. Jack found that he still aged, but very slowly — he noted that he had a couple of grey hairs in 2008, one hundred and thirty-nine years after arriving in Cardiff — and could recover from any degree of physical harm, including death itself, given a few minutes time. Working for Torchwood In 1899, Torchwood Cardiff agents Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd found out about Jack. They captured and tortured him to discover why he could not die and what connection he had to the Doctor, who the Torchwood Institute had designated an enemy. After telling them that the Doctor was a hero who would save them from aliens, Jack was released on the condition that he undertake a mission for Torchwood. Jack was sent to stop a criminal Blowfish, which he returned to Torchwood Three's Hub, only to see it killed by a shot to the head. Disgusted by Torchwood's methods, Jack walked away from the organisation. He ended up in a bar, where he drowned his sorrows alone until a young cartomancer offered to read him his fortune. She gave a completely accurate prophecy of the Doctor's eventual return to Cardiff 100 years into the future. Left with nothing to do but wait for a full century until his version of the Doctor coincided with his timeline, Jack reconsidered Torchwood's offer and began working for them and awaiting the Doctor's return. Jack continued working for Torchwood for over a hundred years, still pursuing his goal of finding the Doctor in the meantime. On 17 May 1899, Jack was temporarily working with the London branch of Torchwood based at the National History Museum when an alien creature escaped and started feeding on the youth of Londoners at the same time Torchwood was visited by Queen Victoria for her annual inspection of the Institute, resulting in him sharing an adventure with the Queen as she took to pursuing the creature. After Victoria killed the creature by exploiting its weakness against the elderly, Jack declined her offer to take command of Torchwood London, the position having been left vacant when its previous director was rendered rapidly aged permanently incapacitated, telling her that his place was in Cardiff. Jack went to China during the Boxer Rebellion, where he worked with explosives. 20th century In 1902, Jack investigated strange visions at Ravenhall Manor, a Gothic 18th century house. He defeated the creature responsible. In 1906, Jack set up a bank account, the interest of which would lead to a small fortune by 2011. In the same year, Jack began two affairs with a couple called Alison and Miles, and even attended their wedding. On the same day, Miles drowned Alison and turned himself into the police, leaving Jack to face the guilt of his role in their volatile demises. In 1909, Jack was travelling through Lahore by train with a group of soldiers under his command, when they were killed by Fairies. Some of the soldiers had recently run over and killed one of the Fairies' Chosen Ones. In revenge, the Fairies suffocated the soldiers by forcing rose petals down their throats. Jack later left Torchwood to fight in World War I. Shortly before the war, he investigated strange disappearances in Tiger Bay. He found out that they were becoming Weevils. He realised that this must have had something to do with Object 1 and threw it into the rift. In 1914, during the Christmas truce, Jack was recovering in a hospital after surviving a bullet to the head. Jack was present at Gallipoli during the Gallipoli campaign. By this point he was wearing a battered coat which had sustained several holes as a result of gunfire. He was responsible for saving the life of Ata, an Ottoman soldier, while warding off a creature which fed on fear in times of war. While doing so, Jack was killed twice, first from a gunshot inflicted by Ata when he initially approached him, then again by Ottoman forces when they recovered Ata. In 1918, Gerald Carter and Harriet Derbyshire brought in Tommy Brockless to be put in suspended animation and use him as a key to fix time shifts happening then and in the 21st century. At some point after this, Jack retrieved instructions on what to do with Tommy in a box temporally locked until the Rift met the same conditions as in 1918. Jack witnessed Tommy being awakened each year to see if he "still worked". In the 1920s, to investigate the Night Travellers, Jack joined a travelling show in which he was billed as "the man who couldn't die". In 1924, Jack was sent to shut Torchwood India down. During his stay in Delhi, he had a brief fling with Torchwood India's leader, Eleanor. In 1927, Jack went to New York City on a mission to stop the Trickster's Brigade from infecting President Roosevelt's brain with a parasite. When he arrived at Ellis Island, Jack met Angelo Colasanto. The two stayed in a room in New York together and had sex. Comparing Angelo to one of the Doctor's companions, the two went to the warehouse where the parasite was being kept and killed it. As the two tried to escape, however, Jack was killed and Angelo was captured and taken to jail. The next year, after Angelo got out of jail, Jack returned claiming that he had only been playing dead. Angelo didn't believe Jack, however, and assumed that Jack was the Devil. Angelo stabbed Jack and was shocked when Jack came back to life. Jack was then chained up and repeatedly killed, since people assumed that his immortality was either a miracle or a blessing. Jack then saw three men come to the room where he was chained, but he never learned who they were. Angelo decided to help Jack escape, but Jack jumped off of a building and disappeared from Angelo's life. Jack later fought in World War 2. During the war, he met Estelle Cole. The pair became lovers and spent some time in London together. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Somehow, however, this never happened, and they lost touch with one another. In 1965, the alien race known as the 456, communicating through radio, set up a deal: Jack, with the involvement of Andrew Staines, Ellen Hunt and Michael Sanders, would deliver to them twelve young orphans as a "gift" at a meeting point in Scotland. In exchange for the children, the unseen aliens would give them a cure for a new strain of an Indonesian flu that the aliens claimed would mutate and kill twenty-five million people. Jack received the assignment specifically because of his immortality, and the perception, as one of the officers later told him, that he "didn't care." Despite his misgivings, Jack followed his orders, and delivered the children. Clement McDonald, however, slipped away from the exchange, and had nightmares about Jack for the rest of his life. In the 1970s, Jack sported a moustache. He dated Stella Courtney for five weeks. In 1975, Jack and another Torchwood agent, Lucia Moretti, had a daughter, Melissa Moretti, who aged normally. Lucia and Jack split up sometime prior to 1977, and at the request of her mother, their daughter was sent into the Witness Protection Program, relocated and given the name of Alice Sangster, presumably arising from her mother's fear of the immortal Captain Jack. The application was approved on 14 February, 1977; however, Jack eventually rebuilt a relationship with his daughter. Although Jack was a Torchwood agent at the time, he was still considered a freelance operative rather than a full-time employer. On several occasions during the 1990s, Jack visited the Powell Estate to watch Rose Tyler grow up, but did not approach her to avoid disrupting her timeline. 21st century On New Year's Day 2000, Jack, now a full-time agent for Torchwood Three, suffered a major emotional blow when one of his colleagues, Alex Hopkins, suffered a nervous breakdown and killed the entire Torchwood Three staff. Knowing Jack couldn't die, he did not attempt to kill Jack and waited for him to arrive at the Hub before committing suicide. As the only surviving member of Torchwood Three, he spent the next few years recruiting new members. After taking over, Jack found two people the Rift had taken and later returned to Cardiff inside the vaults. He established an institution for them on Flat Holm Island, and told the carers there that they, and others that came through, were experiments gone wrong. Over several years Jack rebuilt his decimated organisation. He headhunted weapons expert Suzie Costello to come to Cardiff to join and later recruited Toshiko Sato from UNIT imprisonment. Jack was present in the Hub on 26 March 2005 when it was temporarily frozen in a time bubble for a day by Torchwood One's Rajesh Singh so that director Yvonne Hartman could procure a Drahvin scanner from the Hub unhindered. Yvonne observed the frozen Jack, noting this was the first time they had met, though he was unable to notice her. She commented that his photographs did not do him justice. Understanding that Jack did not work "for Queen and Country", Yvonne regarded him as a liability and "not Torchwood" and would soon after arrange for the new Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Barry Jackson, to inform her when the Doctor appeared in Cardiff, knowing that Jack would not. Jack met Dr Owen Harper when he dealt with an alien parasite which had inhabited the brain of Owen's fiancée Katie Russell under the guise of a tumour before revealing itself during surgery, with Jack being forced to sedate Owen when he refused to let him recover her body before altering security footage to remove all traces of himself. Jack later went to observe, from a distance, Owen standing by Katie's grave following her funeral. He was seen by Owen, who angrily rushed towards and attacked him before breaking down in his arms. After Owen calmed down, Jack offered Owen a job with Torchwood Three, so he could save people and find purpose without Katie. Owen reluctantly accepted. Jack's activities at the time of the Blaidd Drwg incident in Cardiff in September 2006, which involved Jack's younger, mortal self, included keeping the entire Torchwood team on lockdown in the Hub, to prevent them from seeing his younger self, and vice versa. After Torchwood One's old regime was "destroyed" in the Battle of Canary Wharf, Jack rebuilt and changed Torchwood's organisation. By 2008, there was a half dozen of them left. He later told the Tenth Doctor that he did this in the Doctor's honour. He took in Ianto Jones, a survivor of Torchwood One, after some heavy persuasion by Ianto himself. During this time, Jack held on to the hope of re-establishing contact with the Doctor, who he believed could help him. At some point after Torchwood One destroyed the Sycorax ship in 2006 under orders from Prime Minister Harriet Jones, Jack obtained a severed hand that had fallen from the Sycorax craft and which was identified as having belonged to the Tenth Doctor. He kept the hand in a portable container in Torchwood Three's nerve centre, the Hub, and treated it as a prized possession, much to the occasional consternation of his colleagues. Torchwood Series 1 The team had been testing the resurrection gauntlet on a series of murders which unknown to Jack were committed by Suzie to make her understand the glove further. At a hospital, he helped capture a Weevil. Police Constable Gwen Cooper began investigating Jack and followed him from the hospital to Torchwood. He showed her around the Hub, then laced a drink with retcon to make her forget about everything. After Suzie was exposed as a serial murderer, she tried escaping by shooting Jack, but when he revived, she shot herself. Jack recruited Gwen, whose memories had resurfaced, as Torchwood's newest member. Gwen became the only person on the team who knew of Jack's immortality. Jack chased after a meteorite containing the sex gas creature, where Gwen had accidentally released it. He tricked the gas creature into leaving Carys Fletcher and entering the Torchwood portable prison cell. The entity was poisoned by Earth's atmosphere and died. (TV: Day One) As Gwen was a "beat cop", and untrained in firearms, Jack trained her to protect herself. Jack helped Gwen and Owen capture a quantum transducer Bernie Harris had been carrying. He later confiscated the alien artefacts Bernie had been trying to sell. He failed to prevent the death of Ed Morgan Gwen indirectly foresaw with the transducer. Jack then ordered the transducer locked away. Ianto had hidden the partially-converted Cyberman Lisa Hallett inside the Torchwood Hub. Jack and the others managed to bypass the Hub's lockdown and escape, but Ianto rushed back for his girlfriend. After Lisa had placed her brain inside the body of another human, the rest of the team had no choice but to kill her. Jack re-encountered the same fairies that had killed his men in Lahore. He saw them kill Estelle Cole and he prevented Gwen from stopping Jasmine Pierce, their new Chosen One, from joining their ranks as they could have destroyed the Earth. The Torchwood team travelled to the Welsh countryside to investigate a series of gruesome murders. The Torchwood SUV was stolen by a group of cannibals that harvested travellers once every ten years. The team followed the cannibals to their village. Right as his team were captured, Jack stepped in and incapacitated the cannibals. The cannibals were arrested by the police. The Torchwood team discovered a teleporter buried in the ground for two hundred years, alongside a corpse of a soldier with his heart ripped out. An Arcateenian called Mary threatened Tosh's life, demanding her transporter back. Jack reprogrammed Mary's teleporter as he handed it back and she was teleported straight into the Sun. Jack asked Ianto how he was after Lisa's death and took him on a weevil hunt. Ianto tried to get closer with Jack. The two investigated a Scorchie infestation at the Millennium Centre. After stopping an alien possessed poodle Jack asked Ianto how he was feeling. He was investigating rift activity in Radyr when he encountered Ianto in a pub, who was investigating missing people that had a connection with Radyr. Jack knew what the Saviour was and that his race were a slave traders. Ianto pushed him into the rift which the Saviour had opened. Ianto then regretted his decision and went to retrieve him from the camp. (AUDIO: Broken) Jack decided to investigate the conspiracy theorist George Wilson who talked about the Committee. He posed as an investigator for Plexus Magazine to attend one of Wilson's conferences where he met by accident with Sam Hallett who recognised him. He managed to get an interview from Kate Wilson with her father. He learnt about the different phases that George believed the Committee was arranging. He then spent his time looking through video footage of George learning more about him. During his research he was contacted by Sam and Jack was forced to watch Sam commit suicide. He went to Wilson to find out why Sam was killed. Jack learnt what Wilson had made it all up, though Jack knew some of it was true. He found out that Kate was a member of the Committee and that they knew all about him. Kate told him that she was feeding enough information to George to make the humans believe the conspiracy and that they were doing this to make the humans complacent. He then went AWOL from Torchwood for a while to investigate them. (AUDIO: The Conspiracy) Jack decided to investigate Neil Redmond in relation to his doppelganger NJ. He was still investigating the Committee by this point and thought that the accident might be due to the Committee. He also investigated Neil's crash. He traced mysterious things following the accident. He discovered that Trent had given him the idea to have a doppelganger. He told Neil that his actions had cost a lot of people their lives. Neil detailed how he got the robot to take over his operations and his social life, but he started to resent him. Jack informed Neil that NJ was going rogue and dealing with terrorists. He later met with NJ who tried to seduce him and succeeded. After having sex with NJ he told Neil to shut him down but this didn't work. NJ attacked Jack after this and killed him. After Jack came back to life he managed to destroy NJ, but not before NJ confirmed that he was made by the Committee and that the Committee weren't invading the Earth, they were invited. (AUDIO: Uncanny Valley) While investigating a murder case with Suzie's involvement, Gwen revived Suzie using the resurrection gauntlet, and started having her life drained by the constant link the gauntlet maintained between them. After shooting her achieved nothing, Jack ordered Tosh to destroy the gauntlet, killing Suzie and saving Gwen's life. Jack saw John Ellis, Emma-Louise Cowell and Diane Holmes come through the Rift from 1953 Earth. He befriended John, as he was also a man out of his own time. As John had nothing left to live for, he committed suicide. Unable to convince John to continue living, Jack held his hand as the car fumes overwhelmed John. At some point during this time, Jack was kidnapped and Gwen searched for him. The Three Families then captured Gwen and transported them to Chernobyl, where they extracted blood samples from Jack, and used retcon gas to remove his and Gwen's memories of the event. This event would prove significant later. (WC: Web of Lies) Jack shut down a Weevil Fight Club, freed the Weevil captive there and saved Owen's life. Owen chastised Jack for saving him, saying that he felt "totally at peace". Tosh and Jack investigated music from the 1940s playing from the Ritz. The Rift brought them back to 1941, where they met Jack's namesake. Jack bonded with the real Jack over war stories and inadvertently complicated his relationship with Nancy Floyd. The two Jacks had a brief romance. Owen opened the Rift with the Rift Manipulator to return Jack and Tosh to the 21st century. The opening of the Rift brought diseases and people across time and space. Jack was forced to dismiss Owen. Owen later returned and shot Jack; through Bilis Manger's manipulations, Owen re-opened the Rift to send everything back. Jack resurrected and the rest of his team learnt of his immortality. After the Rift was opened, Jack was forced to confront Abaddon. Abbadon was destroyed while attempting to leech Jack's life, though the exertion resulted in Jack remaining dead for days, his immortality apparently unable to save him. He was brought back to life after a kiss from Gwen. A short while after his resurrection, Jack noticed the Doctor's hand begin to glow. From inside of the Hub, Jack recognised the sound of the TARDIS materialising, elated, after decades of waiting, by the knowledge that the young cartomancer's prophecy had been fulfilled and that a version of the Doctor he knew was returning to refuel. By the time the rest of the Torchwood team arrived to investigate the sound, Jack had gone. Doctor Who Series 3 Reuniting with the Tenth Doctor Having heard the TARDIS, Jack left the Hub with the Doctor's hand in a backpack. Rushing to where it was parked, he managed to jump onto the ship before it dematerialised, clinging on as it travelled through the time vortex to the year 100,000,000,000,000. The Doctor and Jack had an awkward reunion, owing both to the Doctor's regeneration into his tenth incarnation since they last met and the fact the Ninth Doctor had abandoned him on Satellite Five. Before long the Doctor admitted that he had run from Jack because his unique nature as a living temporal anomaly made the Time Lord physically uncomfortable when near him — even looking at Jack was an effort. Jack made the happy discovery, though, that Rose had not been killed in the Battle of Canary Wharf as he had believed. They met and helped Professor Yana to repair a spaceship in order to help the last humans in the universe reach Utopia. After Yana became the Master, who regenerated into a new body and took off in the TARDIS with the Doctor's hand still inside, Jack, the Doctor and the Doctor's companion Martha Jones were left stranded at the end of the universe to be killed by the Futurekind. The Master After the Doctor fixed Jack's vortex manipulator, the trio used it to escape the Futurekind and travel back to 2008, where they discovered the Master, using the alias "Harold Saxon", had been elected Great Britain's Prime Minister. He framed them for terrorism, planting explosives in Martha's flat. He also made sure that Jack couldn't get help from his Torchwood team by sending them to the Himalayas "on a wild goose chase". With nowhere to go, Jack, the Doctor and Martha went on the run. On board the Master's airship, the Valiant, the Doctor discovered his TARDIS had been turned into a paradox machine. After failing to foil the Master's plot, the Master summoned the Toclafane, whom he ordered to assassinate US President Arthur Winters, attack the Earth, and decimate the population. He then killed Jack and aged the Doctor with his laser screwdriver. As the Toclafane began slaughtering the population, Jack, realising they couldn't stop the Master, told Martha to escape using his vortex manipulator. Being kept prisoner aboard the Valiant for a year, Jack, the Doctor and the Jones family witnessed the Master and the Toclafane devastate Earth's civilisations and reduce the human race to camps of survivors, and suffered at his hands themselves. Bound in chains aboard the Valiant, the thing that kept Jack going during the year of hell was the thought of getting back to his Torchwood team. When Martha allowed herself to be taken to the Master, she and the Doctor revealed their plan; using the Archangel Network, the Doctor harnessed the psychic energy of humanity's hope, as Martha had spent a year travelling the world telling humanity about his importance to them. On the Doctor's orders, Jack destroyed the paradox machine keeping the Toclafane in the present, undoing the entire year; Earth was restored as time resumed for everyone else right after the President was killed, but those on the Valiant retained their memories due to being at the "eye of the storm". After the Master's death, the Doctor offered Jack the opportunity to end his long exile on Earth and join him in the TARDIS, but out of loyalty to his Torchwood team, he decided to stay in Cardiff. Torchwood Series 2 Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth The Torchwood Three Children of Earth Miracle Day Aliens Among Us God Among Us Doctor Who: Fugitive of the Judoon Sometime after his initial travels with the Doctor, Jack travelled in a stolen spaceship to warn them about the Lone Cyberman. He caught up with Team TARDIS in 21st century Gloucester, but was only able to make contact with Graham, Ryan, and Yaz, and so told them to pass on the warning to the Thirteenth Doctor. Personality Jack Harkness' personality was willfully enigmatic. He enjoyed his persona of "mysterious time traveller", much of which remained constant in his experiences with Torchwood and the Doctor. Before being cursed with immortality, he was a flippant former con man who loved adventuring with the Doctor and seducing beings throughout the universe. Jack automatically flirted with most people he met, not caring about their gender or if they were human, alien or even robots. The Doctor often told him to stop and Jack would often reply, "I'm just saying hello". But as the Doctor pointed out, "For you, that's flirting". Besides being a flirt, Jack was a drinker. He once remarked that on one occasion when he was sentenced to death, he got drunk and ended up in bed with both his executioners. He told Rose that he preferred to discuss business while he was drinking. Jack claimed to the Ninth Doctor that before he met him he had been a coward and said that he might have been better off that way. Despite the fact that he was incapable of dying even if he wanted to, Jack retained a sense of humour, frequently telling jokes and being lively and cheerful. However, underneath his cheerful demeanour, Jack was unsure if he wanted to die or not. Living forever (or at least as near to forever as a human could live) brought him to an existential viewpoint. While he joked about grey hairs and remained silent about mortality, Jack saw death as the ultimate end of being; there was no afterlife and no one waiting for him from his past lives. Jack expressed annoyance at people in the 21st century being unable to figure out that aliens exist, believing the Sycorax invasion on the Christmas of 2005 and the Battle of Canary Wharf were more than enough proof that they did. Despite his friendly and flirtatious nature, Jack could also be ruthless at times and did not hesitate to kill anyone or anything that he felt was a threat. He was also equally unwilling to do anything that could endanger the Torchwood facility. This sometimes got him into trouble with his allies who disapproved of his lack of compassion. An example of this was when he tried to force Ianto Jones to execute his girlfriend Lisa Hallett, who had been turned into a Cyberman, instead of letting someone else do it. He reasoned that the entire thing was Ianto's responsibility and even threatened to kill them both if he didn't do it, causing Ianto to say "You like to think you're a hero, but you're the biggest monster of all". Another example of his ruthlessness was when he refused to open the Rift despite it being their best chance to change everything back to normal, even insulting the rest of the team when they attempted it. This caused Owen Harper to shoot him because he felt that Jack didn't care about what they had lost. Because of these incidents, the entire team was surprised by Jack's desire to save the Cash Cow, with Gwen Cooper going so far as to imply she thought he didn't have a heart. Indeed, although he could be aggressive, Jack still cared deeply about his allies and was devastated when any of them were harmed or killed. Always a vocal, unreliable narrator of his own adventures, Jack was as much of a mystery to the people he met as the countless lives he claimed to have led. Jack continued to protect himself with an air of mystery. No one he encountered knew his real name or many details about his career or life. He often told anecdotes about his sex life, but no one knew how many were real. Though he professed "responsibility" as his motto after the Year That Never Was, the utter devastation Jack experienced in the space of five days over the course of the 456 incident and the deaths of his grandson and Ianto Jones left him wracked with guilt and grief, unable to remain on Earth. When he returned to Earth, Jack seemed to be a shadow of his old self because he had lost so many people he cared about, although he had recovered enough to stay on Earth in order to defend it. Jack was haunted by the loss of his younger brother Gray and spent many decades searching for him. He blamed himself for Gray's disappearance because he'd let go of his hand when they were fleeing from aliens during their childhood. Jack loved his brother deeply and, even after Gray turned against him, Jack told him that he forgave him. However, Gray refused to give him absolution and Jack had no choice but to chloroform him and seal him in the cryo-chambers. John Hart insisted that killing him was the only option, believing that Gray would never recover form the trauma, but Jack refused, believing that there had been enough death. Skills and Abilities Jack is eternally; tall with a muscular built, and a strong and commanding presence, he is extremely intelligent, charismatic, eloquent and attractive; with flawless smooth skin, perfect black hair and white teeth, a compelling voice. He is very "well-endowed", with endless libido, virility, vigor, and vitality, he also possessed superhuman pheromones which makes him naturally nice-smelling, irresistibly attractive, and sexually arousing to others. He possesses innate seductive skills and charming allure which he uses to passively and efficiently to seduce and manipulate anyone of either the same, opposite, or entirely different species of sex. He has irresistible level of charm. He intuitively has an encyclopedic knowledge in sexual and carnal techniques, allowing him to invoke a specific type of sexual fulfillment in a specific sexual partner. He can induce pleasure in someone who is not expecting or desiring it, as well as create, induce, or reveal new desires that the partner never even realized they had, such as when he seduced Ianto, and Angelo into a relationship, whereas both of them were heterosexual. This results in absolute satisfaction for any partner, Jack is a true immortal, a fixed point in time, he possesses absolute immortality, he is unable to die, age, get sick, or be permanently wounded. He is absolutely one of a kind, he cannot be replicated, cloned, mimicked, copied, etc.' ' Every time he dies, or is killed by any means, he will inevitably return to life no matter what. He could die and come back to life almost instantly, although on occasion his resurrection was delayed if he experienced enough trauma. This would cause his body to deteriorate from the slow healing, such as suffering the pallor of a corpse. He heals by automatically erasing the damages from existence. He can regenerate fully destroyed limbs or body parts, recover his life-force. Each time Jack came back to life, he would awaken with a very deep gasp of breath as his respiratory system resumed its functions. An interesting side effect, used only once on record, was the ability to use his temporal healing on another being, allowing that person to recover very quickly. He could also re-grow his whole body. After a bomb that was planted in his stomach exploded, he was able to fully regenerate from just an arm, a shoulder, and part of his head in a bit over twelve hours. His bones grew back first, followed by his internal organs, and lastly his skin, and it would appear that he perfectly retained all his memories and knowledge. The process of resurrection could be painful, especially in this instance. He regained consciousness before his healing was complete, with his eyes and his flesh yet to regrow, but the ability to feel pain intact, causing Jack to scream for hours on end and hold extreme resentment to those who planted the bomb inside him. Jack apparently underwent a similar experience in 2007 after his body was destroyed after being thrown out of an airplane at 30,000 feet over Chernobyl and he subsequently reconstituted after most (but not all) of his body parts were recovered; however, due to exposure to a form of retcon gas, he lost all memory of this. He is very durable and is able to endure heat and radiation which would burn or vaporize others, without harm or pain. Jack viewed this power as a curse as much as a blessing, as each time he died he did not experience anything at all, good or bad, although the process of resurrection was described as being "hauled over broken glass." Notably, although Jack quickly recovered from fatal injuries, he did sustain more minor wounds such as a cut lip or a black eye and retain them for a while after the injury was inflicted, demonstrating that his immortality was just that. These wounds healed much more quickly than the average human's, and were usually gone within a day or so. The Tenth Doctor explained to Jack about his power after their reunion: Rose, as the Bad Wolf entity, resurrected him and brought him back forever. The Tenth Doctor said that Jack was a fixed point in time, an impossible thing which was troublesome to look at, even the TARDIS tried to get rid of him. The Doctor said that he was unable to undo Jack's immortality, and resurrection power, and Jack would never truly die. Tosh could not read his thoughts, although he could project thoughts to Tosh if he so chose. Jack confirmed that he was immune to mental manipulation, but he knew someone was trying to read his mind. Jack could make himself unnoticeable at will. Jack can speak, read, write, understand and communicate in any language fluently. Jack had enhanced abilities as such, he was always in perfect physical and mental condition and a natural expert and instinctively proficient in all weaponry, especially firearms. He was physically strong enough to rip the bolts of chains he had been bound with by the Master out of the wall. He possesses extremely sharp senses, lighting-fast reflexes and flawless accuracy, such as when he noticed and accurately fired on a Dalek instantly after teleporting from Cardiff to London at night without even looking. He is a natural fighter, capable of easily taking out several trained soldiers and CIA bodyguards without assistance and within moments, and successfully tackled and pinned Angelo Colasanto. He even went toe to toe with fellow time agent John Hart. He possess perfect memory, he can remember and recall everything that he has ever experienced, encountered or learned in his lifetime. He needs only to read, hear or see something once and he will never forget it. His mind has unlimited storage capacity, and he is able to immediately recall any information he has stored with perfect clarity. His memories remain intact even if his brain is completely destroyed. He has unparalleled leadership skills due to his ability to see the variables of any situation and predict the outcome of an event. His immortality extends to his mental and emotional capacity, he gets over deaths and tragedies, and does not feel guilt, after killing who knows how many, he is shown living a carefree life free of mental exhaustion for centuries. Gallery 1x11.jpg|Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler, Ninth Doctor and Mickey Smith TorchwoodOriginalCast.jpg|Gwen Cooper, Suzie Costello, Captain Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper 31ll.jpg|Martha Jones, 10th Doctor and Jack Harkness Tennant-Doctor-who-cast-250.png|10th Doctor with Sarah Jane Smith, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler, Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Noble and Jack Harkness Tw2.jpg Navigation Category:Male Category:Sophisticated Category:Science Fiction Heroes Category:Immortals Category:Casanova Category:Tragic Category:Mysterious Category:Lethal Category:Revived Category:Honorable Category:Fighter Category:In Love Category:Anti Hero Category:Arrogant Category:Martyr Category:Special Agents Category:Military Category:Protector of Innocence Category:Live Action Heroes Category:TV Show Heroes Category:Leaders Category:Charismatic Category:Secret Agents Category:Protectors Category:Knights Category:Related to Villain Category:Determinators Category:The Messiah Category:Paranormal Investigators Category:Anti-Nihilists Category:Crossover Heroes Category:Scapegoat Category:Doctor Who Heroes Category:Elderly Category:Neutral Good Category:Monster Slayers Category:Genius Category:Mischievous Category:Heroic Jerks